Arcade Fire composer sets Kronos Quartet to human heartbeats

Arcade Fire instrumentalist Richard Parry has been talking about a number of pieces he has scored for classical strings foursome Kronos Quartet’s new studio release ‘Music For Heart & Breath’, revealing that, as part of the project, he has superimposed sounds of the musicians’ heartbeats within his compositions, setting each to the pace of its own organic tempo.

Speaking about it all to Classic FM, he says: “You find the audience paying attention to their own internal rhythms, their own breathing and their own heartbeats, and then trying to sort of match them to the performers onstage. Listening in the space between those two things happening, someone else broadcasting or amplifying or broadcasting their own internal, really quiet rhythms, and as a listener trying to see where that interfaces with your own – that’s just a completely different listening experience to what we’re used to having”.

If you managed to follow all of that, listen to more of Parry’s Classic FM interview here.

Talking of Arcade Fire, James Murphy has made vague hints to the effect that he might be involved in making their new LP. And why shouldn’t he be? After all, he did say to Spin in 2010 that he had tried to collaborate with the band on two separate occasions before, but failed because of his now non-relevant commitments to LCD Soundsystem.

Note the all-important “yet” in that sentence, and await official confirmation.

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